Plant Based Nutrition and Health by Stephen Walsh (Paul Appleby, Sep 2003)
Plant Based Nutrition and Health. Stephen Walsh. The Vegan Society, 240 pp, pbk, £7-95.
Stephen Walsh is currently chair of the UK Vegan Society and Science Co-ordinator of the International Vegetarian Union. Several years ago he decided to apply his professional skills as a systems analyst to the study of human nutrition. The result is Plant Based Nutrition and Health, a summary of the knowledge gleaned from hundreds of scientific studies (none involving the use of animals) of relevance to the health of vegans and others following a largely plant food diet.
Plant Based Nutrition and Health is not a diet book in that it does not prescribe a specific diet but provides a series of guidelines for healthy eating choices within the parameters of a plant based diet. These are neatly summarised at the end of each chapter, and brought together in a summary of recommendations at the end of this fully referenced book. The style is straightforward and the recommendations are sensible and practical, although the suggestion to take a mid-winter holiday nearer the equator to top up your vitamin D may be unrealistic for many readers! Apart from one short chapter, the temptation to pad the book out with recipes is thankfully avoided - there are plenty of vegan recipe books already. My main gripe is with the title. Almost all diets are 'plant-based' because most foods consumed are derived from plants: this book covers an exclusively plant food or vegan diet, and this should be reflected in the title.
Plant Based Nutrition and Health is not as comprehensive or as detailed as the excellent Becoming Vegan by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina. However, it is more affordable, conveniently available from The Vegan Society (see www.vegansociety.com or phone 0845 458 8244), and better suited to UK readers. Every vegan should have a copy.
Paul Appleby, September 2003
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Author: Paul Appleby
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